Double ear infection

My Little Man is not feeling well.

I left work early yesterday to take Nicholas (and that means Natalie had to go, too) to the pediatrician. Nicholas has a cold with some chest congestion and wheezing and I wanted to be sure he was okay. (Natalie has a history of febrile seizures and those tend to run in families.)

We saw the nurse practitioner and Nicholas has two ugly looking ears. He's on Omnicef once a day for the ear infection and liquid Albuterol three times a day for the wheezing. I stopped by to visit him at lunchtime today to give him his 2nd dose of Albuterol for the day.

I have dinner cooking in the crockpot --we're having spaghetti tonight, by request for Natalie. My laundry should be washing as I post because I have the "delay wash" all setup. Still have to take clothes out of the dryer as I did not get a chance to do that last night, but I'll manage that tonight when waiting for the water to boil for pasta.

My hat goes off to single moms everywhere. Trying to do this with one child isn't too bad, how anyone does this with two children for the long haul is beyond me. And for those single moms with more than two children -- let's just say I am in awe of you!

Speaking of crockpots -- check out Slate's article on great slowcookers!

I survived Day 1!

Yes, I made it in to work on time and with children and gear, too!

I called the pediatrician office first thing this morning -- Nicholas still has a cough and I want him checked out today. So we have an afternoon appointment.

I spoke with Mom and Dad today -- Mom is excited about coming down to see the kids but is not too keen on the airplane ride part of it. I told her that the flight is short -- she's been to longer Masses at church. I think that made her giggle. :-)

I'll update about Nicholas when I know more. Tonight is make our own pizza night for dinner so it might be a late update.

Daddy goes to California

DH is enroute to California for the week. This is a rare occurrence for him to have to travel (and for so long), so it is a little bit of an adjustment for the family. Here's a copy of the email that I just sent him (so he can read it on his Blackberry):

After dropping you off at the airport, with both kids asleep in the car, I went straight from there to Harris Teeter to get groceries for the week. (Yes, I had a list and a menu "in my head" for each night.) By about the Beltway interchange, Nicholas had woken up and seemed confused why I was driving instead of "daddy". But I told him all was okay and he went back to sleep.

As we got close to Harris Teeter, I asked Natalie (who was asleep) if she was ready to help me at the grocery store -- and that we were going to get strawberries, and some ice cream, and some cookies, and dinner -- maybe we could make pizza this week, etc. Just tried to keep it "light". She and Nicholas were all excited, and she said that she was going to have "good listening ears" and help in the store.

So we got the racecar shopping cart (WOOHOO!) and did our grocery run. One of the workers brought two balloons for the kids -- they were thrilled! Then we had to stop at the "dinosaur" (dragon). Well, there was an "Out of Order" sign on it. Natalie was okay with it, but Nicholas was hysterical. :-(

We made it out to the car as he was sobbing -- and it started to rain. Got both kids and balloons in the car, loaded the car up, and headed for home.

Got the kids in the house with balloons -- Nicholas is better now. Got the groceries in the house. Saw the condition of the fridge -- YUCK -- and fixed that while they watched "Old MacDonald" downstairs. Got the groceries put away and got dinner on the table. Nicholas sees "Daddy's car" and wants to know where Daddy is. "Daddy, where are you?"

After dinner -- started putting lights on the Christmas tree. Three sets of lights are blown, so got most of the lights on and started doing bead garland together. We'll finish that after I get more lights tomorrow. Nicholas asks, "Where's Daddy?" I've been saying that Daddy is on an airplane to California. Now I add "Daddy had to go to work in California, so he won't be home tonight." So Nicholas said, "Daddy at work on airplane."

Now we move to bath. Nicholas still asking about "Daddy -- bathtime". I tell Nicholas, "Daddy is not here." Nicholas says, "Daddy at work on airplane." Got them all set, made the offer for everyone to pick the bed they want to sleep in. Natalie wants to sleep in Nicholas' bed. Nicholas wants to sleep in Mommy's bed. So that's what we did.

Nicholas STILL asks, "Where's Daddy?" I hugged him and said, "Daddy is not coming home tonight. He's on a plane to California for work. He loves you and will see you on Friday." With that he rolled over, scooted his back towards me, and fell asleep.

Love,
Boo

So far so good. I have everything ready for work tomorrow. Let's see how close I am to my "real schedule" without Dad around.

And can I just say I am loving the look of my refrigerator tonight? It was FUN to get it so clean and so QUICKLY, too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week has been pure madness.

Every spare moment has been focused on Mom. Dad met with the attorney on Tuesday so that he can get health care proxies, power of attorney orders, and a trust setup for their house. That afternoon, Mom went to see the PA at her doctor's practice -- the visiting nurse took her blood pressure on Monday and it was 190/90. Her blood pressure was fine on Tuesday -- Mom thought that there was some sort of "plot" to move her into a nursing home. She sees her new neaurologist on January 12 and does not see her primary care physician (a cardiologist) until December 12. My parents will be spending Christmas with us and this is only week 2 on Aricept for her.

We had a nice Thanksgiving at home. At one point we had planned to go to Richmond to go to the children's museum and the science museum, but I'm glad we did not go as both children were not feeling all that well yesterday. Nicholas has a constant runny nose and Natalie had a low-grade fever yesterday.

We took the final gates down yesterday (!!!) after the electricians came to do all the work on lights on Wednesday. We now have timers on all new exterior lights, a motion sensing floodlight in the backyard, and new lights in the children's bedrooms and the kitchen. Yesterday and the security system folks came and moved our security box, too -- a very productive week!

Today we did The Big Clothing Sort and donated 7 bags of things to the Salvation Army. Tonight we went to see the drive-thru Christmas Lights out in Upper Marlboro, MD -- VERY nice and we plan to go back with my parents when they come to visit.

Oh -- the Christmas cards also arrived. I'll share the picture early:

The week from Hades

Figures that four days of heaven would be followed by four days from -- well, you know.

I have been putting major house into the charity event that I am the reluctant co-chair of -- plus my co-chair announced last week that she is leaving and moving back home to the mid-west. Plus there is just so much work involved with this charity drive thing and, no matter how many people you have that ARE really pulling their weight, there is an awful lot to do.

Today (Thursday) is the first day that I could literally take a breath. And it did not help matters that our neighborhood's civic association had a meeting on Tuesday night. Plus it appears that I am on the verge of battling mastitis and my mom is not doing all that great.

More on all this tomorrow...or maybe Saturday. I made an appointment for myself to get highlights on Saturday -- 2 hours away for ME TIME and away from everyone. Well, except my stylist, whom I love. I can hardly WAIT for Saturday!!!

Four days of heaven

It is Sunday night, and DH is trying to get Nicholas to go to sleep...oh yeah, good bloomin' luck on that.

I had four days with my children. It was HEAVENLY!

Thursday we went to the Air & Space Museum. Such a cool thing being so close to the Smithsonian. Anyway, we went by my office and took the Metro from there, and headed over to Air & Space. Natalie's requirement was going to the planetarium to "be in the dark and see the pictures of the planets on the ceiling". Well, I heard about the new IMAX movie "Magnificent Desolation". It's a 3-D movie of walking on the moon. So I asked her if she wanted to see the movie or go to the planetarium. She wanted the planetarium. Well, we arrived around 11:20 am and I knew the IMAX show was at 12:25 pm, so we had lunch first, then went to see a couple of exhibits (How Things Fly and Air Transportation) and then headed over to the IMAX theater. Perfect timing! Went straight in and got our 3-D glasses. Nicholas wasn't sure about the glasses part but Natalie was totally into it. It was a GREAT movie and we all had so much fun! The fastest 40 minutes I've ever seen with them!

After the movie, we went to the planetarium and caught that show. It was okay, but not nearly as good as IMAX. Nicholas started to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" towards the end of the show.

We went through more exhibits and called it a day at 2:30 pm. Neither of them had napped yet and then both of them fell asleep on the walk back to the Metro (thank goodness I brought the double stroller!) and we made it back to my car at my office. When I was buckling Natalie into her car seat, she asked me why we didn't get to ride the train back from the museum. *giggle*

On Friday, DH was home for the day so it was the beginning of the Attack the Leaves in the Yard weekend. We bagged 13 bags of leaves on Friday. By the end of today (Sunday), 29 bags were filled with leaves and set curbside. We have easily another 20 bags to go in the backyard alone, and we have another tree to "drop" its leaves.

Saturday and today were typical weekend days, but somehow we just managed to get so much accomplished this weekend. The programmable thermostat is now installed. The chimney sweep came and did his inspection. The fireplace accessories are by the fireplace. Lots of clutter has been dealt with. All the new exterior and interior lights are not only ordered but actually here -- all I need to do is mark what is going where so the electrician has an easier time of it. Our leaf blower actually works. :-) My beef stew is cooking for the charity event on Wednesday.

It's frightening, but somehow we just got tons done this weekend. Maybe I need more long weekends like this!

Oh -- news about my mom. Friday morning was her first REALLY good morning. She went to sleep at 8:30 pm and got up at 6:30 am. She felt so good, she went shopping with Dad to get greens/decorations for the house. That made me feel so good!!!

Charitable giving

Well, my "big week" is almost here. Our "Concern for Community" week starts on Monday. So here's a link to one of the organizations that receives assistance through the United Co-op Appeal -- NRECA International Foundation.

Pre-school has an in-service day tomorrow and DH is up to his eyeballs in Congressional stuff, so I' m taking the day off to be with the kids. (WOOHOO!) So we are planning on going to the Smithsonian tomorrow. Should be lots of fun!

I did some reading on Aricept -- full effects of the drug do not occur until 6 to 8 weeks after starting on the medication. So I called and told my dad that. When I spoke to my mom this afternoon, she was in tears with me on the phone because she is so frustrated calling my dad my brother's name. She feels it is very insulting and she is so disappointed in herself. *sigh* -- this is so VERY hard.

Dad bought a George Foreman grill and a crockpot. I sent him his first recipe today. I am thinking about putting together a ring binder of large print recipes for him for Christmas. I think they might really appreciate that as a gift. So if you have any great recipes that have only a few ingredients, please share them!

Now I am on the search for a flu shot. Both kids got flu shots yesterday morning, but our work-based flu shot clinic was cancelled due to shortage of vaccine supply. So I guess I might be in line for a flu shot this weekend. We'll see...

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad

Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad! 57 years ago (but who's counting?) was your wedding day at Sacred Heart Church. I hope you have many more years together.

On a good note, DH's mom was released from the hospital today (yes, both moms were in the same hospital at the same time!) and she'll be going to a rehab place for a little while before she can go back home.

My mom was visited by a nurse today and my dad could take a short break from care-giving. The nurse will return next week to check on my mom.

We made a appointment with the attorney for November 22. I'm going to email my dad with questions he should ask and papers he should bring with him.

Mom sounded a bit better this afternoon. I didn't call tonight as it would have been too late.

Congratulations to Governor-elect Kaine!!!

You MUST check out this post on divas...

Mindy has this Diva thing NAILED!!! Oh, to be mom to a 4 year-old diva...

Oh, what a week...

Sorry I have been away. It's just been a little crazed in my life.

It all started Friday morning. As I was heading out the door, my sister-in-law called -- my mother was being taken to the hospital by ambulance because she was weak, dizzy, and had numbness in her hands and fingers. And wait -- there's more.

The day before, she "saw" a woman in her bedroom -- the woman told her that my father was not eating. Something happened and my mother walked to my brother's house -- somehow managed to get there -- and was sitting out on his porch at 9 a.m.

Evidently my mother decided to stop taking her "memory pill" (for dementia) a month ago. Thursday night, my sister-in-law urged my mother to take the pill again.

So -- back to Friday. My sister-in-law spent the day at the hospital. I was spending time making long distance phone calls trying to reach my mother's doctor. He's out and will be out through the 18th. So I pieced together what I could and faxed my mother's doctor with the details. In the meantime, my mother is having all sorts of tests -- all come back negative. But my mother is still exhausted and feels like she has been run over by a truck. Maybe there is a medication reaction with the memory pill? The hospital staff says no. Mom tries to stand up and she is very woozy.

They keep her there overnight to get her rehydrated. She is discharged Saturday morning. Yet she is still woozy.

So my father is running ragged trying to care for her. They had talked with a nutritionist before discharge so they both knew how much she needed to eat. So Dad is off to the grocery store to get food but he is afraid to leave Mom alone. Neighbors sit with her while he is gone. She eats very well on Saturday.

Sunday morning she is still very sleepy and now has ringing in her ears.

Dad is going to stop the memory pill again. He wants to go to the neighborhood pharmacy to ask about side effects. I convince him to call the doctor-on-call at the medical place my Mom's doctor is at. He gets a call back -- the memory pill is the cause and don't take anymore of them.

So why didn't the hospital say that?

She eats well on Sunday. Plan is to call Monday morning and get into see the nurse practitioner or the physician's assistant as soon as possible.

Monday morning, she is still pretty woozy. She has a 2:15 PM appointment with Minnie, the P.A. that she really likes. She went with both Dad and my sister-in-law. Minnie says, "You look really tired" and Mom says she is. Minnie puts her on Aricept. My sister-in-law is trying to get a visiting nurse or a home health aide in to check Mom's blood pressure and to help her get bathed and such. I found an attorney who happens to be a friend of my sister-in-law's to help my Dad through the health care proxy issues he faces.

I tell you, it is hard to be so far away and also help out in some form.

Some venting

You know....it's true when people say that only you can allow yourself to be used. But it seems that there are more and more people attempting to do the "using".

An example -- I have been "volunteered" to be a co-chair of a charity event. (It's one of those "you can't say no" things.) I have been REALLY hauling on this thing as it is now less than 2 weeks away. Everyone else on the committee -- and I mean EVERYONE else on the committee of 11 people -- seem to have more pressing things to get done. I, on the other hand, have been putting in 30+ hours a week on this stuff and other things have been back-sliding. Well, guess what? I took today to primarily work on this charity event thing and tomorrow I am officially off-duty. I am spending the day working on Real Stuff and I am delegating so that everyone else handles it.

I'm tired of being the bailer.